


Can’t Keep My Eyes Off Of You

by LLReid



Category: Queen of Thieves (Voltage Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Christmas Time, Date Night, Domesticity, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, I’m wine drunk and tagging stresses me out, Making Out, The Gilded Poppy, Thinking of Helena’s iconic ‘would you be willing to dream with me’ line, This is me being festive, Vivi is a gift wrap gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21935320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Fic heavily inspired by the songs ‘You and Me’ by Lifehouse, ‘Amazed’ by Lonestar, and ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ by Matt Cardle.~~~~~Smirking, she raised her left hand and made the most dramatic gunshot sound she was capable of making as she shot her with her finger gun, to which Katerina responded by clutching at her heart as if she’d received a fatal blow. It might have been an unbearably childish action that her father would roll his eyes at her for thinking at all acceptable, but with Katerina she felt like she was having all the innocent fun she missed out on having as an actual child. There was nobody else in the world she could be so silly with, nobody else with whom acting so immaturely felt so right. The girl was all of her missing pieces, the missing pieces that did far more than complete the puzzle, they filled in an empty space.
Relationships: Vivienne Tang/Katerina Leyva, Vivienne Tang/Main Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	Can’t Keep My Eyes Off Of You

Katerina was enchanting up close. And from far away. From everywhere, really. Those big brown eyes had completely melted Vivienne’s heart. She was so achingly beautiful, every part of her, and Vivienne had long since stopped attempting to be subtle about the fact she spent the majority of her days staring at her. She loved her hair, the way it looked, the way it felt. She loved touching it, smelling it. She loved the way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed. It made her laugh, too, every time. And she loved watching her eat. Sometimes she couldn’t shovel it in fast enough, but when she got interested in a conversation or lost in one of her daydreams, she would always forget there was anything in front of her at all. And god knew, she loved making love with her. She loved how she couldn’t even talk about that without wanting her immediately.

Before finding her, to Vivienne love had always seemed like something infinitely threatening and dangerous. She hadn’t realised just how soothing it could be. People like her were scared of love because of an innate desire to be in control of all things. Love took that away. People like her struggled to tolerate vulnerability. But despite all of her best efforts, love had caught up with her, and the worldly seductress with a broken heart and an empty soul had completely shattered — and for that, Vivienne would never stop being thankful. Even having just emerged from a situation that was so outside the realms of her control, she was thankful to have Katerina. So, so, thankful.

She often found herself lost in thought about how one tiny decision can change a life. A decision that takes only a split second to make. Deciding to recruit Katerina. Deciding to kiss her in Paris and then deciding to flee France like a coward. Then deciding to earn her forgiveness in Venice. Each of those decisions had changed her life entirely, and had quite possibly saved it. So much had changed. 

In a world of billions of people, she often found herself wondering how on Earth had the Gilded Poppy had managed to happen upon her that day in Central Park. It made her anxious to think about how easy it would have been for them to miss her in such a large city. After all, Vivienne knew that in any given person’s life there were many potentially life altering things that didn’t happen to them that they’d never know didn't happen. The non-stories, of sorts. The extra minute to find the keys that makes you late to the spot where a truck mauled another car instead of yours. The woman you didn't meet because she couldn't get a taxi to the party you had to leave early from. All of life was a series of non-stories, if one chose to look at it that way. They just didn’t know what those non-stories happened to be. 

She didn’t like to think about just how easy it would have been to spot another young artist before Katerina that day in New York, but sometimes she just couldn’t stop herself from running her mind in circles. She had come to believe that in everyone’s life, there’s one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything — suddenly because she had Katerina she finally knew what it felt to belong, to truly have family that she didn’t want to run away from, to feel safe and loved and be the most important person in someone’s life. She had changed absolutely everything...and Vivienne hadn’t ever looked back or regretted being brave and allowing herself to be happy. That single set of actions had caused her life to veer off in a direction she would have sworn blindly that it was never meant to go before meeting Katerina. Falling in love could do that, she thought. It could make her feel better about almost anything to marvel at the way one woman had the power to forever alter Vivienne’s compass — and it was the knowing that such a wonderful thing could so easily happen, as she did not know before, not really, that had fundamentally changed her.

The seductress smiled to herself as she drank in the sight of her lover sitting beside her on their bedroom floor. Wrapping up the christmas presents they had stolen for their friends was tedious work, yet Vivienne felt with a shiver the rare sensation that she was exactly where she should be...even if she was doing most of the leg work in the entire operation. Her darling Katya may have been the only art school graduate in the world who couldn’t gift wrap to save herself. The work was made easier by the fact she was so dear to her. There was nobody else in the world that Vivienne would willingly do hard labour and risk chipping her nails for.

“This might be the single most domestic date night that we’ve ever spent together,” she commented. There was no point in attempting to hide the fact that she was enjoying herself, or that this was exactly how she wished to spend every Christmas Eve she had left — though she would never admit to wanting to shriek with glee at the sight of ‘From Kat and Vivi’ written on their gift tags and at the bottom of their Christmas cards...that was where she drew the line.

Katerina smiled without looking up from the gift tag she was writing for Leon’s gift. “The night we got wine drunk and tried to bake chocolate chip cookies was pretty domestic, don’t you think?”

“It was until we almost set fire to the kitchen.”

“That was your fault for trying to bake cookies in the microwave.”

Vivienne huffed. “One might say it was your fault for daring me to do it, darling.”

“You could have said no.”

“Those eyes of yours make denying you anything impossible.”

“So my eyes are to blame for you deciding to put a metal tray and cookies that were more chocolate chip than cookie in the microwave for twenty minutes?,” Katerina smirked.

“Exactly! I’m so glad we’re on the same page.”

“Honestly, I knew the thing would go ‘boom’. I just wanted to hear Nikolai yelling at you and show Jett he’s not the only one who can blow shit up. Shoot me.”

Smirking, she raised her left hand and made the most dramatic gunshot sound she was capable of making as she shot her with her finger gun, to which Katerina responded by clutching at her heart as if she’d received a fatal blow. It might have been an unbearably childish action that her father would roll his eyes at her for thinking at all acceptable, but with Katerina she felt like she was having all the innocent fun she missed out on having as an actual child. There was nobody else in the world she could be so silly with, nobody else with whom acting so immaturely felt so right. The girl was all of her missing pieces, the missing pieces that did far more than complete the puzzle, they filled in an empty space.

When Katerina smiled at her, Vivienne couldn’t help but puff up a little. She liked the way the younger woman smiled at her — as if every time she did she was looking for and seeing the very best there was to see in Vivienne. Not like Dean, who had always been correcting her, trying to improve her, and not like her mother, who she remembered always seemed like she had just been waiting for her to do the next wrong thing, so she could shake her head and let her know how disappointed she was in her. Nobody in Vivienne’s life had ever smiled at her the way her precious Katya did. Nobody in her whole life had ever made her feel as good as she did. She knew her, she knew everything about her, and she loved her. She loved the real Vivienne, the Vivienne that nobody else had ever seen, that was who she loved. That was who she was proud of.

“Usually I’m the one getting wrapped up in my daydreams but you kinda zoned out just now,” Katerina smiled. Her palm felt like heaven against the flushed skin of Vivienne’s cheek, her thumb gently stroking over her cheekbone. “What’re you thinking about, baby?”

That pet name. Just hearing it come from Katerina’s mouth made her feel like agreeing to anything.

“I can’t keep my eyes off of you,” she confessed. “I don't know whether to worship at your feet or spank the living hell out of you.”

Katerina giggled. “You and I both know you’re more than capable of doing both. I’m still sore from last night.”

“Oh?,” Vivienne smirked. “Do elaborate, you know how that thrills me.”

“Well.” Katerina hummed, thoughtfully, and crawled onto Vivienne’s lap. Sat right in front of her she could see that she had that captivating far-off look sparkling in her big doe eyes. That look that made the antique Christmas decorations they’d stolen from Harrods in London and from the Palace of Versailles strung around the bedroom seem like they were the least impressive things in the room. “Every time I move I’m reminded of how...good...with that new toy of yours you are. I think of only you. I know I’m yours.”

Slowly, she leaned in to give her a kiss, moving gently enough that the American could move away if she didn’t want it, but Katerina eagerly accepted. She kissed her as gently as she could, tasting the wine and chocolate they’d been indulging on lingering on her lips as they tumbled over hers. If any of their friends had to ask, she would never admit to savouring their kisses as much as she did. For so long all she had been able to do was stare at Katerina’s lips from across a crowded room and fantasise about what they might taste like. For so long she didn’t think they would ever get to where they were. Katya wasn’t a fantasy anymore, but something real, something so precious and dear to her heart that she couldn’t imagine living without.

She felt lost within her arms and found, broken apart, and remade. Her mouth fit hers perfectly, just as it had the very first time they’d kissed. It started out soft and gentle, and intensified to depths that Vivienne hadn’t even been aware existed in real life before meeting her. She clung to her, holding her on her lap as tightly as she could, kissing her with absolutely everything in her, as if she could draw that essential spark of her into her very soul, she let it become the whole of her universe, and knew finally how it felt to be enough for someone despite being such a work in progress.

Vivienne remembered being so scared of her. Part of her had been so convinced she was going to reject her that she’d pushed her as far away from her as she possibly could before she could hurt her. Vivienne hadn’t known how to live with the pain of unrequited love, and she’d almost destroyed all of her chances with Katerina like she had been doing forever. To her the pain of being rejected was unimaginable. So she had risked her future happiness because of her fear. She was thankful every single day that Katerina was so much stronger than her, that she had flat out told her just how dense she was being in her continuous self-sabotaging. No one else would have had the patience, she was certain.

“By this time next year you will be my wife,” Vivienne murmured against her lips.

“You haven’t even asked me to marry you yet, officially.”

“Because Christmas proposals are unbearably tacky and unoriginal, my darling. They scream ‘straight’ and ‘divorce waiting to happen’ as much as they do ‘new money’ and ‘lack of functional brain cells’.” She leaned back and dotted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “You deserve far more than that, in my expert opinion.”

Katerina giggled. 

“So make no mistake, I fully intend on proposing to you within the next year. I am much stronger than I use to be." As she said the words, she realised the truth of them. She was much stronger now. Strong enough to reach for this dream...and strong enough to stop it from ever slipping through her fingers. “I thought you'd like to know in case you wanted to procure a dress or something.”

Both of them started giggling like teenagers, completely lost in the moment and each other’s embrace. Being so in love with another person was the single most exhilarating thing that Vivienne had ever experienced, but being in love made her crazy. Love made her act like a fool even when she knew she was acting like a fool and couldn't help herself from acting like a fool...and it was glorious. It was clear to her that for at least twenty years she had merely gone through the motions of each day like a dense animal, neither daring to hope for a different kind of life nor even knowing enough to desire one any different than what she was born into, yet sat on the bedroom floor with her love in her arms everything felt like it was more than okay. Vivienne felt more like herself than she ever had.

Katerina rested her brow against hers, breathing heavily from all the kissing and laughter. “Do you ever think about what our life will be like when we’re married?”

“I don’t ever stop.”

“You don’t?,” Katerina beamed. “You already know I think about it all the time.”

She hummed. “I’m warning you ahead of time I plan on casually dropping the fact you’re my wife into every conversation that I have. I don’t know how I’ll ever stop saying it!”

“I don’t know how I will either, honestly.” Gently, she pushed the hair back from Vivienne’s face and traced the line of her jaw with her finger. “I can see Zoe and Jett vibe checking us every time we say it.”

“I think that’s pretty much guaranteed.”

They giggled again and Vivienne pressed into her. First her thighs, then her middle, her chest, and finally her mouth. Katerina made a soft whimpering sound, but its definition was clear to her. She kissed her openmouthed, using her tongue, and when she kissed back, she felt the hum that vibrated deep inside her chest. It was the kind of hungry sound she hadn’t heard since that morning when they’d showered together. Feminine and carnal, it thrilled and aroused her, completed her. She wanted each day she spent with her to last forever...it was a peculiar kind of dissatisfaction amongst so much happiness, a bittersweet nostalgia for a moment not yet past. Even in the midst of a pleasurable moment she was aware of how ephemeral it was, and excited by the promise of many more just like it.

“We’ll end up just like those old rich couples we saw dancing in the ballroom at The Ritz,” Vivienne said. “Wealthy, childless, well dressed, and over-sexed.”

“I like the sound of that,” smirked Katerina.

She sighed, happily. “When we’re married I’ll slow dance with you every night, barefoot and by candlelight in our bedroom...so long as you continue making us the perfect playlists. I’ll make love to you as often as you’ll let me. Our days will be spent indulging each and every one of our heart’s desires...I’m going to make you so happy. You’ll see. You’re going to be so, so, happy for the rest of your life.”

“Wanna know a secret?”

“You know I do.”

“You’ve already made me the happiest I’ve ever been.” Katerina knew Vivienne needed the human touch. Her touch. Vivienne found strength there. What they found in each other steadied them both. Soft, and tender, to reaffirm who they were, what they were together. The simple caress of her jaw, the pad of her thumb brushing against her bottom lip, it made her feel whole. When she moved flush against her, her skin dewed from passion and shimmering softly beneath the christmas lights, there wasn’t a single place inside of Vivienne where her love hadn’t touched. 

— fin.


End file.
